Dempsey and Makepeace: Oneshots
by xLaramiex
Summary: Oneshots from the TV show Dempsey and Makepeace.
1. Tonight

You can partly blame haveunottthought for this. I was listening to a song yesterday and it made me picture that scene where she sends them to the police ball. The idea about New York was also from her so thanks; I owe you on this one!

So the song's a good 30 years out of time but it's still great and the plunny wouldn't let go. The song is Tonight by Westlife (yup, I know. Embarrassing). You should listen to it as you read =) I'm soooo addicted to the song.

At the beginning of this, they've been together a while but haven't -ahem- been physically intimate.

--

It had been their worst argument ever.

He'd been called back to New York as a witness with a week's notice. The night before he left he'd announced that he was going away for a fortnight. She'd been furious that both he and Spikings had known for a week and not told her. She thought it was because he didn't see her as important enough to think about, and her insecurity came out as anger. He couldn't find the words to tell her that he'd been trying not to think about the prospect of two weeks without her.

He didn't know how he'd cope.

_Lately I'm so tired,  
If I took it all out on you  
I never meant to.  
If I left you outside,  
If you ever felt I ignored you,  
No: my life is all you._

She hadn't been able to face ringing him and he hadn't called her once in the two weeks. He'd picked up the phone countless times; he'd tried so many times to tell her how sorry he was, how much he missed her. None of the words came out.

On his first day back he'd turned up on her doorstep with flowers and a sheepish smile.

It was some minutes before they stopped kissing long enough to say hello.

_So put your best dress on  
And wrap yourself in the arms of someone  
Who wants to give you all the love you want._

They'd sat together on her sofa and he'd mentioned a birthday party a drinking buddy was throwing and before they knew it they'd decided to go.

"Wear something that makes you look gorgeous," he'd instructed as he held her tightly. "Like nothing."

He'd driven home to get ready himself, feeling a hundred times lighter and completely unable to keep the smile from his face. He'd sang loudly along to the radio all the way.

_Tonight,  
Gonna make it up to you tonight,  
Gonna make love to you tonight,  
You're gonna know how much I missed you.  
Baby, tonight, I'll dedicate my heart to you tonight,  
I'm gonna be a part of you tonight,  
You're gonna know how much I missed you,  
And I missed you so._

She'd run upstairs giggling like a giddy schoolgirl and found her favourite baby-blue dress which hugged her curves, swayed at the bottom and made her feel like a million dollars.

She'd smiled at herself in the mirror as the word 'dollar' made her think of him. She'd pulled on a long coat as the doorbell rang, hiding her dress and her body. The way he'd stared at her made her think that he was hoping to suddenly develop x-ray vision.

_I don't wanna act like  
I know that you'll be mine, forever,  
Though I hope it's forever.  
Don't want you to feel like  
I take you for granted, whenever  
We are together._

When they arrived at the party in a large hall she removed her coat and he gazed at her so lovingly and with such admiration that she blushed.

_So put your best dress on  
And wrap yourself in the arms of someone  
Who wants to give you all the love you want._

They walked onto the dance floor hand-in-hand but suddenly this meagre contact wasn't enough and they held each other tightly, swaying with the music. Overhead lights stroked the crowd through the darkness.

_Tonight,  
Gonna make it up to you tonight,  
Gonna make love to you tonight,  
You're gonna know how much I missed you.  
Baby, tonight, I'll dedicate my heart to you tonight,  
I'm gonna be a part of you tonight,  
You're gonna know how much I missed you,  
And I missed you so,  
Oh yeah._

All through the first song he whispered into her ear how sorry he was, and told her how lost he was without her, and explained his reasons for not telling her.

"I love you, Harry," he murmured.

She glowed as she responded.

_So put your best dress on,  
And wrap yourself in my arms,  
In my love._

"Let's have all the men singing the chorus!" he DJ called, and James gazed into Harry's eyes as he sang to her, the voices of the other men mingling together. Her heart swelled as she listened to him.

_Tonight,  
Gonna make it up to you tonight,  
Gonna make love to you tonight,  
You're gonna know how much I missed you.  
Baby, tonight, I'll dedicate my heart to you tonight,  
I'm gonna be a part of you tonight,  
You're gonna know how much I missed you._

Harry knew what was going to happen that night, because however close she got to him wasn't enough, however tightly they clung to each other wasn't enough. She wanted him.

_Baby, tonight,  
Gonna make it up to you tonight,  
Gonna make love to you tonight,  
You're gonna know how much I missed you.  
Baby, tonight, I'll dedicate my heart to you tonight,  
I'm gonna be a part of you tonight,  
You're gonna know how much I missed you,  
And I missed you so._


	2. Drunken Kisses

_This just leapt into my head. It's probably set during about episode 4.1 or 4.2 In the episode it would probably show the scene they describe but as a oneshot it works better without, I think._

_Anyways, enjoy =)_

--

"Harry, can I ask you somethin'?" Dempsey asked as they walked down the street following a suspect.

"What is it?" she responded.

"You know yesterday, me and you and your friends, we all went out?"

"Yes."

"You remember all of that?"

Laughing at Dempsey's jokes, drinking too much, drunken kissing with several different men, watching Dempsey flirt with all of her friends…She'd had some misgivings about asking Dempsey to go out with them, but all of them had been proved wrong. He'd got on fine with her friends, but stayed close enough to her that she didn't feel that he was only here for them. He'd flirted a lot, but that was just him. "Most of it, yes. I was quite drunk though." She started frowning. "Did I do something really embarrassing?"

"No, no. You were fine. Uhh…You remember all the kissin'?"

"Yes…" _All too well…_His lips were soft, softer than they looked. He'd kissed her cheeks, her lips, her neck. Oh Lord, she was getting hot again.

"Why'd you keep pushin' me away? You let Charlie-boy and Eddie kiss ya," he asked nervously, coming to the crux of the matter.

"I was pushing Charles and Edward away as well, Lieutenant," she replied, unconsciously putting distance between them with her use of his job title. It was a reminder to him, to herself, that nothing could happen. _But why not? Why not when she wanted it so much?_

"You weren't," he contradicted quietly, not wanting to make her defensive or angry but needing to say it.

"Yes, well…I've known them longer. It's not so…" _Different, exciting, exhilarating, arousing…_ "awkward. You know. It was just because we were all drunk."

"But what I mean is, Harry…" He turned and leant against the wall, trapping her with his arms. "At the end, when I said g'night…I kissed you again and you said, uh - you said I was a better kisser than those two."

Harry was acutely aware of the blush creeping over her face. She hadn't remembered saying that. "Really."

"If you enjoyed it, why'd you keep pushin' me away?" He asked, using the same words as he had before but now closer in meaning to how he had intended.

"Because I enjoyed it too much," Harry replied, then froze. She hadn't meant to speak the words aloud but his posture invited confidence, implied closeness; it was so enclosed that between his arms felt like an extension of her mind.

"What are you talkin' about? If you enjoy somethin' you should do it. Why didn't you just go with it like with the other two?"

Harry tried to avoid his eyes, not an easy feat when he was so close to her. She ended up staring somewhere over his shoulder and suddenly wanted to kiss the bare skin just underneath his ear. She looked back into his eyes and the openness there gave her a rush of confidence to tell him the truth. Her eyes flickered instinctively to his lips before she answered. "Because I wouldn't be able to stop," she admitted quickly, before pulling his arm out of the way and hurrying onwards.

Dempsey watched her with a grin spreading across his features. "Harry," he called after her.

She turned and he realised she was blushing. "What?"

His grin widened. "You're goin' the wrong way."

She scowled, angry at how embarrassed she was, and brushed past him standing in the middle of the pavement.

He caught up with her and held her around the elbow to make her slow. "You don't have to hold anything back with me, Tiger," he murmured into her ear. He didn't notice the goosebumps rising on her arms as he ran his hand down her arm and locked their fingers together. "I'll never want you to stop."

--

_I actually love this fic…I hope you guys did too =)_


	3. Grief 1

_Kind of a worst case scenario but I hadda do it - what if Dempsey really was killed?_

_Two versions of this; one where they got together before he died and one where they didn't. The first is if they didn't. It's rather depressing but it got into my head and I had to do it. The second will follow shortly._

--

Spikings had advised, encouraged, begged - even, at one point, ordered her to go to the funeral, but she just couldn't face it. She couldn't face all those sombre faces. She couldn't face the impersonal vicar who tried so hard to understand but never could just how much he meant to her.

She couldn't face the possibilities that were now too late to carry out.

She thought of his face for the millionth time, his lips curved - as they so often were - into a smile. A smile at her, his eyes soft; smiling at a joke, his head tipped back a little; smiling suggestively with one eyebrow raised. Most of her memories of him focused around that smile. The smile she'd fallen for, utterly. They'd argued as well, of course. To begin with their arguments had been sparked by incompatibility, but after a while it had simply been that they knew they were too strong to be broken up by an argument. That was just one of the things she loved about their friendship - she could be completely herself.

He'd been on her thoughts constantly over the last week, every memory breaking her heart a little more. Tears had been leaking unchecked from her eyes almost constantly as she drifted aimlessly about her house, having been told by Spikings not to come into work for at least two weeks. It was then she realised just how much Spikings had known about her feelings for him, and, she dared to hope, his feelings for her.

But how would she ever know for sure?

She'd barely eaten in a week; she could feel her clothes becoming looser as she lost weight, but she couldn't bring herself to swallow anything past the lump in her throat. Angela came over on the night of the funeral and sat with her. She had brought food with her, but Harry had been unable to eat more than a few mouthfuls.

"It's silly," she had chocked out to her best friend. "It wasn't as though we were going out. I feel so wretched, but it's ridiculous."

"Of course it's not," Angela had soothed her. "Just because you never told him how you feel doesn't mean that you felt it any less. Even if you weren't in love with him, he was a wonderful friend to you."

Harry nodded in agreement, having unconsciously hoped that Angela would say something like that.

"I'll miss him myself, and I only met him a couple of times. You remember the first time he came out with us and we swapped outfits? That's when I realised how much you liked him. You'd have done anything for him, wouldn't you?"

Harry nodded again, miserably, and contemplated that willingness to do anything was no protection. He had still been shot, and she hadn't even been there as a criminal he'd put behind bars had taken his revenge.

After a week, she could barely speak. She'd handed in her resignation to Spikings; he'd asked her to reconsider but there was no way she could face going back and just shook her head at him numbly. Her father begged her to spend some time with him at the hall, to give her some time away from things, but she wanted to stay in her own house, away from anything that could possibly remind her of him. Not that she needed any help. Everything and everyone and every sound made her think of him, sent questions swirling round her mind.

_Why had she never told him? Why had she not been there when he was shot? If she had, would he be dead now, lying cold and still in the dark ground? Had he loved her back, even a little?_

After two weeks, she ventured outside for some milk. She never made it to the corner shop - upon hearing an American accent her heart had leapt and then fell and she had to race back home to be alone before her tears could fall.

After three weeks, Angela came over again and dragged her out to a bar. Harry had hated the very idea of it but Angela had insisted. It would be just the two of them, she promised. One drink, and then home again. She took them to the bar in which Harry had worn Angela's red dress, and Harry sobbed over the counter.

"_Why did he have to get himself shot, Angela? I just want him back…"_


	4. Grief 2

_The second version, as promised. Dempsey was shot after the two of them got together - probably a month or so after. Strangely, it's not really that depressing…_

--

Harry sat on her sofa, staring into nothingness. The TV was on but she wasn't watching it. She wondered if she sat here long enough could she just fade away, cease to exist?

Oblivion, that was what she wanted. Silence and numbness, away from this house. She'd spent the last few nights at his flat, but it was beginning to smell of her instead of him. Better to be somewhere that was supposed to smell of her.

There was a full cup of black coffee going cold at her feet, an uneaten hot dog slowly decaying in the bin. She was wearing nothing but a man's shirt. She sat there for a long time.

She'd been with him when it happened; that was some small comfort. The pain felt sharper, more distinct, but at least she could believe in it. She'd held his hand as he died, rested his head on her lap as he breathed his last. The bullet had gone straight into his heart. He'd been dead before the ambulance arrived. At least he didn't suffer too much.

"Life is hard and then you die," he'd struggled out. "Don't miss me too much, Tiger. I love you."

"I love you too, I love you more than anything, please don't leave me," she'd sobbed back. He never replied.

Eventually, Harry dragged herself upstairs to lie in a hot bath. Salty tears fell into sweet-smelling bathwater. On the side of the bath was a razor and for just one crazy moment the image of lying in blood-red bathwater flitted through her head. Before she could even contemplate the thought again she threw the razor away from her in disgust at herself and to the other side of the bathroom - not before she noted it was a man's razor. James'. She sat up and looked around the bathroom. There was an extra toothbrush in the cup, his aftershave on the shelf. Getting out of the bath and wrapping a towel around herself, she breathed in the smell of him before padding outside to see if there was anything else of his.

Dripping water, she went into her bedroom. His socks sprawled on her dressing table. His clothes hanging in her wardrobe. His underwear in her laundry basket!

She explored the rest of her house as though it was foreign to her. Evidence of him was everywhere - his cereal in the kitchen, his tie lying over the back of the chair.

Despite everything, Harry felt a laugh bubbling up inside of her. "Lieutenant James bloody Dempsey," she spoke aloud, "you cheeky little sod. You've been moving in with me, haven't you? I bet you haven't been home in weeks!" Shaking her head at him, she tied his tie around her wrist like a bracelet, put his aftershave on it, and got dressed in black. She had a funeral to go to.


	5. Freddy

_So sorry I couldn't update last week but it was my mum's birthday party on Saturday, Remembrance Day on Sunday, and any other time I was doing homework. I still haven't really got time to write a proper chapter, so in lieu of that, enjoy this. It was going to be a songfic then I changed my mind. So it's kind of inspired by a song but not actually based on it. There will shortly be a fic that actually is a songfic._

_--_

Harry closed her eyes as Dempsey held her, but only because her face was hidden from him. His arms were loosely slung around her, and he rested his cheek against the top of her head as she rested hers against his chest. She'd had a long day - she'd taken annual leave to visit her friend almost two hour's drive away because her father had died. Jane had been distraught, and Harry was exhausted. It had been an extremely emotional day. Dempsey had come over with a bottle of wine, taken one look at her face and pulled her into an embrace.

Harry felt a laugh bubbling up inside her. "Dempsey, you'll have to let go sometime." They were still stood in the open doorway.

"Nah, not until you do," he responded in a teasing voice.

Harry stood back, a smile playing around her lips. "Easy," she said with her hands on her hips and a challenging lift to her voice.

Dempsey shook his head in amusement as she moved past him to close the door. He found himself reaching out and running his index finger down her inner arm, past the slight dip of her elbow. He grabbed her hand and pulled her through the hall into the living room.

"Come on Harry, you and I are going to have a nice relaxing evening with plenty of wine and hot sex," he instructed with a wicked glint in his eye.

"Dempsey!" she warned threateningly.

"Joke!" he said hastily, and Harry went into the living room. Feeling cold, she lit a fire before sitting on the floor with her back against the sofa. Dempsey sat against the other sofa and watched her.

"Are you alright? You look a bit…" He trailed off.

Harry hadn't thought he'd notice. "I'm just tired," she lied.

Dempsey watched her avoiding his eyes. "No you're not. What's the matter?"

Harry sighed. "It's Jane..."

"That broad you went to see today?"

"My _friend_, Dempsey, yes. Her father died last week...I was just thinking about Freddy..." She stared into the fire, daring to peek over the edge into the abyss that was life without her father. It wasn't that she couldn't cope without him, but he made her life just that little bit better. He was always there when she needed him, always at the end of a phone call. She bit her lip to keep her tears at bay.

Seeing her distress, Dempsey moved over to sit beside her, but was at a loss to know what to do after that. Harry solved the problem by tilting her head to the side and leaning on his shoulder; he put his arm around her. The two of them stared into the fire, Dempsey pondering his next words.

"Harry, I ain't gonna pretend he'll live forever, 'cause you know as well as I do that it ain't gonna happen. But when the day comes I'll be right here for you like I always am and always will be."

Harry took her head off his shoulder to look at his face. She'd never seen him looking more sincere than he did now, looking earnestly into her eyes as though begging her to believe him.

She smiled. "Thanks."

The two of them returned to looking silently into the fire.

--

_I'm fairly pleased with that, actually. I hope you guys liked it too. Doubly so, as I seem to have lost the people who usually review my Doctor Who stories. I guess they've got fed up with me uploading Pellinor and Dempsey and Makepeace stuff. Never mind =)_


	6. Fall To Pieces

_Here's the songfic I promised; I stayed up late specially to finish it for you. I love this song =) It's 'Fall To Pieces' by Avril Lavigne. It's the chorus I love and I wanted to write that but the first verse makes for a slightly sadder story than I had intended. It took a rather unexpected turn at the end._

_--_

They were sitting on her sofa when he decided to drop the bombshell.

"Harry, I think we should talk."

Harry went cold all over. Nothing good ever came out of a statement like that. She slowly pressed 'Mute' on the TV remote, leaving the newsreader to mouth away in silence as she observed Harry's life falling to pieces.

_He just wants to talk about how we've not been speaking much recently,_ she tried to reassure herself, but she remained unconvinced. He stayed quiet for a few more seconds and Harry felt herself becoming shaky. Somehow, she knew what he was going to say. She watched him struggling for words as he looked back at her with wide, tortured eyes.

She dropped her eyes to the sofa they were sitting on, the strip of material visible between them. Only a couple of months ago they would have been lying against each other - or holding hands, at the very least. She stared at a small worn patch on the sofa as he began to speak.

"We just don't seem to be workin' lately, do we? Me, an' you…an' us…" He trailed off, his eyes fixed on hers sadly. "I mean, we never talk any more. An' if we do we just seem to argue."

Harry could feel her heart beating slowly but oh-so-strongly in her chest. She could feel her blood crawling around her body like ice. Her lips felt frozen in place as her eyes were glued to her sofa; she was unable to meet his eyes.

"I just think…we should take a break."

Harry's eyes flew to his face, searching his eyes, his mouth, and judged him painfully serious. She was too numb to speak but she knew her anguish showed on her face. _Just because we've been going through a rough patch doesn't mean we have to stop. James, please._

_**I looked away,  
Then I looked back at you,  
You try to say,  
Things that you can't undo.  
If I had my way,  
I'd never get over you,  
Today's the day,  
I pray that we make it through.**_

_**Make it through the fall,  
Make it through it all.**_

James gazed at her uncertainly. _Say somethin', Harry._ She remained speechless, and he felt compelled to fill the silence. "I'm gonna go stay with my mom for a few weeks. I think we just need some space." He waited for her to reply. She didn't. "Just for a couple weeks. We just need some time alone."

_I don't want time alone, I want to be with you._

"Harry, say something."

_**And I don't wanna fall to pieces,  
I just wanna sit and stare at you.  
I don't wanna talk about it,  
And I don't wanna conversation,  
I just wanna cry in front of you.  
I don't wanna talk about it,  
'**__**Cause I'm in love with you.**_

_I can't say something. If I said anything at all I'd scream at you, or I'd cry until I threw up, or worst of all, I'd just swear at you and walk away._

"Do I really mean that little to you?" he asked, his voice becoming heated. "You don't even care that I'm goin' away?"

_You mean everything. I've never told you, I've never even admitted it myself but police work became second a long time ago._

_**You're the only one,  
I'd be with 'til the end.  
When I come undone,  
You bring me back again,  
Back under the stars,  
Back into your arms.**_

_You're the only one I want._

"Harry, talk to me!" James insisted loudly. "That's the problem, you never say anythin', I never know how you feel! You just sit that all prim an' proper like you're too good even to talk to me!"

Harry still couldn't speak, and just watched him with nervous eyes. _If I speak now you'll hear the tears in my voice._

_**And I don't wanna fall to pieces,  
I just wanna sit and stare at you.  
I don't wanna talk about it,  
And I don't wanna conversation,  
I just wanna cry in front of you.  
I don't wanna talk about it,  
'**__**Cause I'm in love with you.**_

"Is that what it is?!" he went on, his voice rising as he got up from the sofa and stood in front of her, unconsciously taking on an aggressive stance as he tried to protect himself from her silence which stabbed into his gut like a splinter of ice. "I know I'm not good enough for you Harry, I always knew that, I knew I could never compete with those stuck-up high-class snobby friends of yours but I tried, Harry, I always tried to be good enough for you!"

Harry stared at him fearfully. They'd never spoken like this before. Any other argument had been on equal terms, and it had been entirely non-aggressive, but now she found herself almost afraid of him. It seemed that the only thing she was really scared of was losing him, and she seemed about to lose him now. She could barely recognise the aggressive man stood in her living room yelling angrily at her.

_**Wanna know who you are,  
Wanna know where to start,  
I wanna know what this means.**_

_**Wanna know how you feel,  
Wanna know what is real,  
I wanna know everything, everything.**_

James ran a hand through his hair wildly. "Say somethin'!" he demanded. "Goddammit, don't just sit there starin' at me! Say anythin'!" He dropped his face into his hands and breathed deeply, in and out, in and out. When he spoke again, his voice was much softer. "Shout and scream at me if you like but don't just sit there."

At last, now he was calm again, Harry found her voice. "I don't know what to say," she said quietly.

James slumped back onto her sofa next to her, leaning on his hand with his elbow on the back of the sofa. "Tell me what you're thinkin'. Tell me what you have been thinkin'. Just tell me how you feel."

"I don't want you to go," she voiced at last. She hated conversations like this but he seemed to be forcing it out of her. Her eyes slid to the TV, where the newsreader was still commentating silently, and back to his face. Her eyes caressed every curve and crevice of his face, the well-known nose, the well-loved eyes. The lips he kissed her with, the arms he held her with. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. _I can't tell you how I feel, I'd never stop. The only person I could talk about this sort of catastrophe with is you, and you're the reason for it. Who do you turn to when the only one who can stop you hurting is the very same one who is making you hurt?_

"James…" she said his name slowly, savouring the sound of it. "Please don't go. I…I love you."

James' whole body softened. "You mean that?" he asked, and it was only now that Harry realised she'd never even said that before. She nodded silently and James laid his hand over hers with the softness of a feather settling.

She looked at their hands and felt the overwhelming urge to say it again. "I love you. I love you so much."

"I love you too, my beautiful princess," he said softly.

_**I don't wanna fall to pieces,  
I just wanna sit and stare at you.  
I don't wanna talk about it,  
And I don't wanna conversation,  
I just wanna cry in front of you.  
I don't wanna talk about it,  
And I don't wanna fall to pieces,  
I just wanna sit and stare at you.  
I don't wanna talk about it,  
And I don't wanna conversation,  
I just wanna cry in front of you.  
And I don't wanna talk about it,  
'**__**Cause I'm in love with you,  
I'm in love with you,  
'**__**Cause I'm in love with you,  
I'm in love with you,  
I'm in love with you.**_


	7. Songs 1: Run To You

_A bit of a songfic that popped into my head while I was listening to the song in question. It's a bit of an apology for taking so long with my next episode._

-:-:-:-

He can't remember ever being so _angry_, she was just so infuriating. Her comments about his dirty clothes strewn haphazardly around the floor, her paranoia when he went "out with the boys", her insistence that he put his feet on the _floor_ and not on the coffee table whenever he sat down on the sofa, her pointing out of every miniscule slight, real or otherwise, that he had inflicted upon her, always spoken in that calm, measured voice that drove him crazy.

They never argued - she simply refused to get caught up in it any more. There was just the constant barrage of ways that he irritated her. For his part, he'd taken to moving his feet when he was told and moving them back a few minutes later; to suggesting she clear up his laundry herself if it bothered her that much; to drinking far more when he went out and crashing through the door in the small hours to find a blanket on the sofa and a closed bedroom door. He hadn't expected it to be like this. Surely marriage wasn't supposed to be this…_numb_. He'd stopped caring.

And now this, her near-constant battle with him about keeping his gun under his pillow. As annoyances went, it was a pretty stupid one. The conversation had started calmly enough, as they always did. "What do I do if it goes off in the middle of the night and blows my head off?" she says, her voice rising in volume just a fraction about the norm.

"Bleed?" he suggests, his lips twisting as he tries to keep from smiling.

"This is serious, James!" she persists.

"Yeah, and what you gonna do if a burglar or a murderer comes in, huh? You gonna moan at 'em 'til they go away?"

"There's a very tiny chance of being burgled," she says, frowning, "but a much higher chance of that gun going off by accident."

"The safety catch is on!" he points out, exasperated. "Even if it weren't, d'you really think that trigger is gonna pull itself? 'Cause it ain't gonna happen!"

"Well, it might!" she insists, and he can hear a shrill note to her voice.

His hands are balled into fists at his sides, held by the tension in his body. "NO IT WON'T!" he bellows, as the short fuse that is his temper runs out and sets alight the ten-tonne block of semtex at his core, and he storms out of the building in a rage, slamming the door on the cloying atmosphere in his house. Regret clings to the furniture, resentment burns out of the radiators, anger settles in the carpets like so much dust, ready to fly up and engulf them both if they don't step carefully.

James Dempsey hurls himself into his car and speeds away, not bothering with a seatbelt. He drives recklessly through the gathering night, breathing heavily as though he has just run a race, until the scowl on his face fades and the dreadful thumping of his heart returns to a normal beat. He starts to focus on the area around him instead of glaring fixedly at the road ahead, and realises - with little surprise, though he hadn't been headed anywhere in particular - where he has driven to.

He parks outside and walks up the familiar front steps. The slightest hesitation reveals his nerves as he clenches and unclenches his hands, then at last knocks. There is quite a pause before the door is opened, so that he considers knocking again, but at last, at last, the door is opening, and there she is, dressed in her cream silk pyjamas and red dressing gown and she's standing there and looks concerned to see him at such a late hour.

"Hiya, Harry," he says, forcing a smile to try to look normal.

"This is late. I was watching a film," she replies neutrally, stepping back to let him in all the same. As he steps over the threshold, he pauses close to her, looking down into her eyes in that way he'd learnt she loved.

"Wanted to see you," he says, without elaborating, pressing a kiss to her cheek before moving out of her personal space to let her shut the door. His breathing is normal now, his heartbeat is calm, his expression, almost serene. Harry follows as he walks into her living room, sits down where she had been sitting, which was indicated by the blanket - half on the sofa, half on the floor - and the box of chocolates on the table next to her.

She tuts as she sees this, but as she goes to sit on the other side of the sofa he redirects her, pulls her down to sit sideways against his body, with her left side to his chest, and draws her into his embrace. He leans his head forward so that his lips rest on her silk-covered shoulder, his forehead somewhere against her ear, and links his arms more securely around her. His eyes close as he breathes in her comfort deeply.

Even after all this time, Harry thinks, this posture still makes her heart beat faster. And he knew what it did to her, the manipulative… But she can't be too angry with him. She just can't, and she's tried often enough. She rests her hand on his calf in front of her, leans back against his leg behind, and prepares to wait until he tells her what is wrong. There is definitely something, or he wouldn't have come at this time of the evening. She knew her friend well enough to know that.

His sigh sends his breath across her neck and goosebumps up her arms. He takes her hand, infinitely gently.

_That's not fair,_ she wants to say, but the words don't come out. _You made your choice a long time ago._

He lays her left hand on his knee in front of her, and as he strokes his hand down her fingers, a slight frown between his eyebrows, it's as though he's trying to smooth them out. She looks at the wedding ring on his finger and starts to feel sick.

"I miss you," he says, the first words they have shared in several minutes.

Harry misses him too. She misses seeing his clothes scattered all over her bedroom floor, usually from hasty removal the night before; she misses seeing his feet resting on her desk at work; she even misses hearing his drunken exploits from his nights out at the pub. She considers her words, knowing this is dangerous territory. "You see me every week," she says carefully.

He is silent for a few more minutes, and when he speaks again she realises that he thinks she genuinely hadn't understood what he'd really meant. "I mean I miss us. I miss kissin' you. Holdin' you." He's still playing with her fingers and if it wasn't for that damned piece of metal on his finger this would be just what she wants to hear. She fixes her eyes on it as though she is drowning and it is an inflatable ring, like the ones at the sides of lakes.

"You were the one who broke it off," she reminds them both.

At last, he stops playing with her fingers, but she gets no relief because he immediately rests his hand on her thigh. It's so intimate she wants to tell him to move - to get up, sit somewhere else, leave her house, her life - but her voice seems to have deserted her again. She's enclosed by his body, but she doesn't feel trapped. It had always been like that when they'd been together.

"You get more beautiful every time I see you," he says softly, his gaze now directed at her face.

"So stop looking," she suggests shakily. _He's married, he's married, he's married -_

"Can't stop lookin' at you." His reply is slightly hoarse as his right hand creeps to the back of her head. At last, their lips meet and Harry wants to pull away but _she wants to kiss him_ so she doesn't, she just lets the fireworks explode in her stomach. She's never fully understood what had caused him to break up with her suddenly and when she'd gone into work he hadn't been there, and soon she found that he'd got himself transferred to murder and at the time she'd joked to Chas, _I bet there'll be a few more murders now,_ and oh _God_ she'd missed his lips on hers. The kiss is slow, exploratory, the first for almost a year.

He'd rung her a week after he'd broken up with her and apologised and begged her to remain friends with him. She couldn't bear to lose him after five years of friendship and six months of a relationship so she'd agreed. They were probably closer than most friends; sat too near, kissed too often, hugged too long, so it had been like a gunshot to the stomach when she'd heard from Chas two months later that he was engaged.

But in the month of his engagement and eight-and-a-half months of his marriage, he still hasn't explained why he no longer wanted to kiss her in this loving, passionate way that he is now. His hand shifts on her thigh; he moves it higher and more between her legs than on top of one. His legs are still around her as though he is trying to make a tiger cage to stop her moving away.

_He's married, he's married, he's married_ - Harry puts her hands on his chest and pushes him away firmly, extricates herself from his semi-prison. As she settles herself on the other side of the sofa she realises that they are both flushed, and breathing hard.

"James, I -" But his lips silence her words as they fall back against the sofa; he is straddling her again, but this time his knees are next to her hips and his hands rest next to her head, lying against the cushions. He looks down at her, both still breathing heavily, and the kiss that follows is full of long-held need and suppressed desire.

Afterwards, as they lie flushed and drowsy on the sofa, him with his back against the back of the sofa to accommodate two people, she wonders if he's been intending this since he first knocked on her door.

She can't look at him as she asks her next question, so she turns her head away and out of the corner of her eye she sees their clothes lying on the floor next to them. James is lying with his arms around her tightly, possessively.

"Why did you break up with me?" she asks, voicing the question she has wanted answered for twelve months.

James gives a long sigh, and there is a silence so long she thinks he will ignore her. "We both know I wasn't good enough for you," he says at last, his voice quiet and gentle and full of regret.

"You were always good enough for me, James, you just wouldn't believe it," she replies, and is proud that her voice is calm.

"I still ain't good enough for you," he persists, and she loses her patience slightly.

"So why are you here?" she asks bitterly.

"'Cause I love you," he says heavily.

"Love me, or sick of your wife?" she asks, and James hates the resentment in her voice.

"That ain't fair, Harry," he says softly.

"Of course it's damn well fair," she snaps, looking up into his face for the first time. She's acutely aware of his arms still clasped around her naked body but at this point she can't bring herself to care. "You broke my heart, Dempsey. You broke my heart and you ran off to marry her." His soft brown eyes are full of sadness as he looks down at her. She shakes her head slightly, as though in disbelief, and removes herself from his embrace to put her dressing gown on, which she huddles in as though it can protect her. He just watches her.

"Go home, James," she says coldly, folding her arms against further protest. "Just go home." She picks up his shirt and throws it at him. She goes upstairs, leaving him to make his own way out. She feels humiliated and belittled by the whole event, but as she hears the front door close softly behind him a few minutes later she realises that she is going to do the exact same thing if he comes over again.

Hating herself, she turns over in bed and pulls the blanket over her head, trying to hide from everything. Trying to block him out.

-:-:-:-

_In case you were wondering, the song was Run To You by Bryan Adams. Thanks for reading! =)_


	8. Songs 2: I Will Always Return

_This song just came up on shuffle on my iPod, and it just felt perfect for a sequel to _Run To You_, the previous songfic. I'm a little nervous about posting it after all the generous reviews I received from the last chapter, but hopefully this won't be too disappointing._

_I wrote this when I should have been doing Chemistry homework. I regret nothing._

-:-:-:-

He can't face going into work the next day, so he calls in sick and spends the day sitting on a bench in the park, chain-smoking two packets of cigarettes. He never smoked this many when he was with Harry. Every time he lights up he remembers the way she'd pull the lighter out of her handbag and he'd curl his fingers around her hand as she lit whatever he was smoking at the time.

Everyone with blonde hair looks like her.

He drowns in memories all day. Ghosts of their friendship taunt him, remind him what they had.

"_You were always good enough for me, James, you just wouldn't believe it."_

He still doesn't believe it. She's a Lady, he's common and ordinary and _Oh how he loves her_. He doesn't believe she could return his feelings. Could he? If they try again, if she wants to, if she can ever forgive him for everything he's put her through, would it be possible? Could she ever love him half as much as he adores her?

By the time the sun begins to fall into the sea of misery he has created, shooting out golden hands in a last desperate attempt to cling to the sky, he has decided one thing. He has to try again.

He walks to the house he hesitates to call home and she's not surprised when he says it's the last time he's coming back. She gazes at him with sadness in her eyes and nods, just nods.

"It's for the best." He's not sure who says that, or who they're trying to convince. He gives her his keys and tells her he'll be in touch through his lawyer.

_This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper._

He can't remember where he heard that but it seems to fit. He leaves her his key to the front door and drives away, and that's it, a year of his life over not with the slamming of a door but with a bitter couple parting with a sad wave. He doesn't regret his leaving, he regrets using her to convince himself he doesn't need Harry.

Because he does, and he knew that all along, but all along he kept on and on hurting this women who doesn't deserve what he's done to her. He's been heartless for a year, and he hasn't seen it until now.

So he leaves the darkness behind him, and drives until the numbness fades and pained freedom overcomes him, like a fish without fins. He drives to the only place he knows there is light. He drives to Harry.

He can't bear being apart from her any more, no matter how literally, figuratively, emotionally, whatever the hell else, he wants her in his life and he wants her heart in exchange for his. Maybe she'll forgive him and maybe she won't, but he has to try. He can't live without her, can't smile except bitterly, can't hope except cynically, can't touch can't breathe can't think can't live without her.

He never stopped loving her, he realises; he has been in the relationship with or without her for a year, was betraying her with his wife. He never truly left her behind.

He pulls up outside her house and sits in his car for an hour until he plucks up the courage to get out and knock on the door. She's wearing grey trousers and a large black cardigan and he feels like he has sucked the colour out of her.

She makes to shut the door on him but he's had a lot of experience with slammed doors and gets his foot in the way. In response to her glare, he says only, "Please."

Her expression doesn't soften but the gap in the door widens and he steps through, all taut elastic and coiled springs. She stands in the hallway with her arms folded as he shuts the door behind him. She waits.

He doesn't know what to say first. "I'm sorry. I love you. I didn't mean to hurt you, I was tryin' to do the best for you but I was wrong an' I'm sorry. I've loved you for a long time, Princess, an' I never stopped, an' I never will, it was just a mistake with her. I know I left an' I'll regret it as long as I live but I'm back an' I'll never leave again if you forgive me. I never could."

Eternity passes them by, loops round and binds them together in a moment of forever while they gaze into each other's eyes. He doesn't know if he's getting through to her but suddenly all the fight leaves him and all he can say is, "Please forgive me."

When she speaks her voice is flat but calm. "I trusted you more than anyone and you betrayed that trust. You can't expect to be able to fix that with an apology."

"I don't expect nothin', but I couldn't go on without tryin'. I left her, y'know."

"What?" Her face is an agony of hope and surprise.

"It never worked between us, Harry. It's like I've been married to you this whole time, feelin' guilty 'bout cheatin' on you." He dares to raise a hand, touches his fingers to her cheek with infinite gentleness. She doesn't move away, though her whole body stiffens. "Like I was just waitin' for that to end so I could come crawlin' back to you. I know I can't fix it just like that, I know that, but I had to try."

She bites her lip, uncertain. "It will take time," she says slowly.

He nods earnestly, no words to speak but needing to show he understands.

"Maybe…Maybe we could give it another go," she says at last, and he feels like he is soaring. "But we need to start talking to each other. Both of us."

"Okay," he agrees immediately.

A ghost of a smile lifts the corners of her mouth. "We'll have to work at it, but yes, maybe one day it'll be alright again."


	9. Just An Apple

_This just crept up on me. I think it's set sometime in series one, but the timing's pretty flexible._

* * *

Harry sits at the table in the kitchen. The apple stares back at her.

It is resting delicately on its side, with its stalk facing her. The light from the window catches it in such a way that it seems to have a smile made of light. The apple is a fresh green colour; the kind of colour modern decorators like to paint kitchens to make them look "fresh".

She is fairly sure that her problems can be traced back to the first few days at police training. Everybody – every man – had watched her. Almost constantly. Harry had been brought up in an environment where manners and etiquette were extremely important, and though she had always prided herself on being more laid-back, there were standards she liked to keep to, and all those eyes watching her were just too much; she could not cope with it.

When she got home, to the little flat that her father was paying for until she could afford to pay him back (he kept insisting that she did not have to, but Harry was adamant that she would pay her way), she was too tired to do anything other than Hstrip off her make-up and collapse into bed.

She had never been a breakfast person. A cup of tea was quite sufficient most mornings.

It was the looking, the staring, the undressing-with-the-eyes. That was not who she was; not why she was there. She wanted to be a police officer, and her body was not going to stop her. She wore baggier, less revealing, safer clothes. Many of them took it as a tease.

Not every police officer stared at her body, of course. Some were liberal enough to accept her as she was. A handful were brave enough to befriend her. And she loved them fiercely, this new-found family.

And yet, they could not shield her from the eyes of men. She began to dread the monthly bleeding that seemed to taunt her with what she was. During those times, she felt too sick with disgust and self-loathing to eat a thing.

The hunger did not ache after a while; in fact, she was never hungry at all. She supposed that should worry her, but somehow it felt like a triumph. She watched the other police officers munching their sandwiches and chocolate and crisps, fat and salt and sugar, and continued writing reports.

Eventually, her period stopped coming. She would bleed a little every five months or so, and could not bring herself to go to work at those times. Instead, she would make vast orders from fast food restaurants, stare at it guiltily for hours, then consume the cold food with a frenzy that made her feel ashamed afterwards.

She survived on apples mostly. Fruit and yoghurt and tea. These foods Harry could call "safe", and ate in moderation.

She would stand in front of her mirror and watch curves turning into bones.

Working outside the office became increasingly difficult; though Harry's weak body tried hard to obey her, she tired far more quickly than she ever had done – far more quickly than whoever her male partner at the time was. Her paperwork suffered from her wandering focus and lack of concentration too – what was once a sharp, analytical brain was floundering from the lack of nourishment.

If not for the man who had overseen her recruitment and training becoming her boss, Harry thought she might have died. What she did in her own time was her own business, he said, but her job performance was slipping, and it was not acceptable.

Harry had left Spikings' office with a pounding heart, confused and ashamed. He had not known what she was doing, knew only that her weight was dropping and she was working well below her potential, but it proved to be just the reality check she needed.

The recovery was long and slow; it was hard work and it was lonely. Even now she could not bring herself to eat when she was stressed, and at the sight of fast food her nausea was matched only by her anxiety.

Harry picks up the apple and bites into it slowly. She has come a long way up a steep mountain, and though there is a way to go yet, she thinks she can see the top.


End file.
